Classwork - Figure Drawing - Dana and Jacob - Day 2

Second day on the is drawing.

The boots are Dana's. I asked her to throw them in front of her so I could draw them.  The work in that corner.

I am eager to paint on this.

Classwork - Figure Drawing - Dana and Jacob - Day 1

Class work for figure drawing. This is large. We have one more day on this assignment.

The models are Dana and Jacob. This is the first time I had Dana as a model she is fun to draw.

There is one more day to this pose. So there is more work I can do.

Goodstuff/ Badstuff

Goodstuff
-I like the composition and the poses. The is a mood to the drawing that is looking and feeling very nice.
-Dana's portrait is looking great. Jacob is working. As he's background there is reason for the lack of focus or rendering.

Badstuff or things to fix tomorrow.
Need to define space in the forground.
Background? Either even the tone or make some space choices.
Probably need to work on jacob.

So Vincent Desidario has a work method where you shellac the page after working on it with charcoal. The it acts as a semi closed ground for painting. The charcoal remains as a ground/under painting. I think I will go back into all the large drawings with this method. I am kind of eager to see what comes of this. I'm looking forward to playing with the drawing and painting interplay. While tomorrow I'm going to draw. I think all of the large scale drawings I did are going to benefit from the process.

Classwork - Figure Drawing - Comparative Anatomy

Luther and Karen - 11/30/15 - 3'x5', Conte on Paper

Figure Drawing class and working big again (36"x 48"). The overall goal was to compare the anatomy between both sexes. The class was two long poses. The first with Luca, and then the afternoon with Karen.

I wish I took a photo with just the Luca pose in there. My goal was to get the whole figure in the page. I covered up a great right hand with the second pose.

I am pretty happy with this drawing. However the lament is that to get this drawing finished will take a few more hours of work. There is a great feeling of space between the two models. Used a chamois to smudge the earlier drawing of Luca to the background.

Things to fix when I get some time to work on this:

• I think the room perspective is a little steep.
• The highlight on Luca's stomach is popping to the foreground.
• A little more dark shades in the figure of Luca. The chamois took away a little too much of the darks in places.
• General focus on background forms paying close attention to straightening the lines and even out the dark to light transitions.

Classwork - Structual Anatomy - Watercolor

Classwork - 11/11/2015, 18"x24", watercolor 

So, the écorché exercise went well this morning. In the afternoon, we had to do drawings of the back of our model. I did the above watercolor. The focus was on the large muscle groups of the back.

I think the painting works, but I think I'm moderately successful at defining the muscle groupings. The value of the ecorché exercise and learning anatomy is being able to add that knowledge to a piece when the visual information is lacking. 

Figure Drawing 2015-11-07 - Luca

Luca 11/09/15, Conté on Paper, 3'x5'

Working big again. This time in black and white instead of toned paper. The drawing is powerful to stand in front of because of its scale and contrast. I am liking what I'm able to get done in the four hours of my six hour of class, but there are some problems with this drawing.

I am liking the effect of the chamois to give a base tone to things. It lets me pull texture in the highlights with an eraser and is making a nice effect on his chest

I am a little unhappy with the right hand and foot. The foot especially looks kind of flat.

Classwork- History/Compositon - Day 2 - Rayne

Rayne-09/08/15-Pose 2 , Watercolor, 11"x15"

"Are you going to work from the model today?" A classmate asked me.

"Of course," I said simply, "I always work from a model if given a choice."
 
Day 2 for History/Composition. We got to see some of my classmates work and I was impressed not only with the dedication but the commitment to ideas that I saw.

I was ill-prepared for class today. I forgot my watercolor at home so I had to run out to the store and buy a tube of burnt sierra and cobalt blue.

So fresh tube of paint in hand I began to paint furiously. I had a little trouble on the first pose. The painting above was second pose of the class.

I exaggerated the pose a bit to make it a bit more dynamic. I managed to pull a lot more range of tones in the flesh in this painting. I really like this painting.  There is a nice mood to it.

Rayne-09/08/15-Pose 1 , Watercolor, 11"x15"

Above is the first pose of the class. It's okay overall, but there are some problems.

I don't like how static the pose is. It is a little stiff and I have some areas of the body that need a bit of resolution. I think got a little distracted by the face in this painting. Is is resolved well but it is at the expense of the rest of the body. I wish I defined the chair shape a little more. It's a little amorphous, in a distracting way.

I was not able to get a varied a range of tones into the figure of the pose. I think I was getting used to the two color painting. It takes a bit to get used to, but this was a great warm-up.

Overall, this was a great session with Rayne.

Re: INVITATION: Drawing @ the academy | Thursday September 3 |

Reign 09/03/15 , Watercolor, 11"x 15"

Day 3

Opening my email.

Hello Students Staff and Faculty!
The Operations and Student Services Departments would like you to join us for an evening of a long pose drawing, painting or sculpture and beat the heat. Thursday evening September 3rd!
We will be setting up 2 models in the air conditioned Wilkinson Hall starting at 5:30 pm going until 8:30 pm tomorrow night, One pose for the duration of the evening.
Ice Cold drinks to be served along with music. Come on down to the hall and have some fun, make some work and cool off for a bit. See you there.
Hope to see you there!

"In a 3 hour pose I can get a pretty good watercolor going," I said as I read the email. 

The event was a great community building activity centered around figure drawing. 
I went and was impressed by the number of people who came out and their skill level. It was also neat to see many members of the staff there drawing, too. It's nice to know that this place is not only home to a number of great artists but also administered by a number of great artist too.

I am pretty happy with my painting above.

The model was Reign. She wore a collection of necklaces and ornamentation that I thought would be a blast to render in watercolor. I think I managed to get some of the shine and glare right.

I was dreading painting the parasol. Japanese and Chinese brushpainting is full of great renderings of these that look effortless. It is a complicated but delicate form.

She took a pose that was very stiff, both feet planted on the floor, It makes sense from her perspective-- it's a three-hour pose and she has to get comfortable. But I improvised the feet of this pose to make it a little more dynamic.

Horse Skeleton

Horse Skeleton 09/02/2015, Ink on Paper, 9"x 12"

September 2, 2015 - Day 2
 
So when I saw the horse Skeleton in the sculpture room I was unsure what to think.

"They made a big deal out of this you know," a classmate told me. "Did you go to the open house day?"

I shook my head.

"Yeah, I went and they made a big deal out of it." He then said, " I don't really get what the big deal is."

So today I had to wait around after anatomy class and I decided to sketch the skeleton. A friend of a friend wanted a drawing of a horse skeleton for a literary magazine she was working on. So I figured this was a great opportunity. 

 As I was sketching, my ear bud blaring, someone came up to me.

"It's hard for me to look at that thing," he said as I pulled out my earbuds. "It keeps getting destroyed," the man said looking intently at the skeleton. "I spent all last year working on this. Maybe I should just stop checking in on it."

The man paused in front of the skeleton and scanned it quickly, exhaled once in a gruff disgust and continued on his way.

I continued to sketch.    

Classwork- History/Compositon - Day 1 - Cyrus

Cyrus 09/01/15 Pose 1, Watercolor, 11"x14"

September 1, 2015

So day one at the New York Academy of Art. My First class was History and Theory of Composition which is one  part history class and one part studio. The work today was to gauge our ability levels. The space we are working in is newly-renovated, so there was a bit of time spent getting the area ready for drawing. 

The model in the afternoon session was Cyrus. He was either Persian or Sikh, I will ask him next time he sits, but either way his body type was a real insight into a class I had a long time ago at the University of Hawaii, Manoa, the Art of Ancient India. 

During that class and looking at slide after slide of statues of the Buddha and other Hindu deities, I always thought the shoulders were exaggerated oddly. But Cyrus's body type really illuminated the body shape those artists were trying to capture. As I'm writing this, this seems like an odd point to be making, but it was a real "Ah Ha" moment even though the realization was rather silly upon reflection.  

The afternoon session was two hour long poses. I know from experience I can get a pretty good watercolor in this time frame.

I worked really systematically the first 20 minutes of the pose on the sketch/outline. The next 20 minutes on blocking in the dark light fields and building the dark. I then spent the last 20  Minutes working on the lighted section for the drawings.           

I am pretty happy with this painting, It's spontaneous; it's well-rendered and has a nice mood to it.

Cyrus 09/01/15 Pose 2, Watercolor, 11"x 14"

Pose 2 was a little rushed and the last pose was collapsed to 5 minutes. As such my same plan fell a little short. I kind of like the effect it made though. I'm finding the incomplete/stylized parts of the form is kind of appealing. I may have to experiment with this and specifically how much of the shadow can I define and still have the form readable.

Speaking of Indian art, I think Cyrus was intentionally making a mudra in this pose.

After Asia By Daniel Chester French

After Asia by Daniel Chester French, Ink on Paper, 9" x 12"

After the orientation meeting for school I had some time before I wanted to head home, so I decided to go back to the National Museum of the Native American and draw another of the statues.

This one is Asia.

I had a lot of fun with this drawing. Coordinating multiple figures in a scene is really challenging and these kind of statues offer some really good practice at these skills.

I like that I was able to add the wash behind the figures and the architectural element on the right.

"Knowledge of divine things is lost to us by incredulity."
~ Heraclitus